Gaming device manufactures have long provided gaming machines employing a plurality of reels, wherein the reels each have a plurality of symbols. In these games, the player “spins” a number of reels that act independently to produce a random generation of a combination of symbols. If the generated combination, or a portion of the combination, matches one of a number of predetermined award producing or winning combinations, the player receives an award.
To increase player enjoyment and excitement, and to increase the popularity of the gaming machines, gaming device manufacturers constantly strive to provide players with new types of gaming machines that attract the player and keep the player entertained. One proven way manufacturers use to make their machines more popular is to increase the number and variety of winning combinations and provide more opportunities for the player to win. Providing more variety and opportunities holds the player's interest for a longer time and also enables the manufacturer to have a larger range of payouts for the winning combinations. The larger range increases the size of the largest possible payout of the gaming device, and large payouts tend to attract players.
To increase variety and opportunity, manufacturers have increased the number of possible symbol positions or paystops. Increasing paystops increases the number of different symbols a game can have and increases the number of times a particular symbol can appear. Increasing the number of times that a symbol can appear increases its likelihood of appearance, which affects the payout of a winning combination containing that symbol. Winning combinations that have a rare or low likelihood of appearance tend to have higher payouts.
One way manufactures have increased the number of paystops has been to increase the size of the reel to accommodate more stops. Original gaming machines had approximately ten stops per reel, modern mechanical reels have approximately thirty to thirty five stops per reel and modern video machines have no physical limit to the number of stops per reel. Another way manufacturers have increased the number of paystops has been to add reels. Original gaming machines had three reels, while modern mechanical machines have employed up to five reels. Video reel machines have not increased the number of reels above five mainly because five reels create enough diversity to keep the game interesting without becoming too complex for the player to enjoy.
Another avenue that manufacturers have taken to provide more variety, opportunity, enjoyment and excitement has been to increase the number of paylines. Paylines are the sequence or line of paystops that the machine analyzes to determine if the player has won an award. The paylines in essence define the combination or group of paystops to be analyzed. Original gaming machines had only one payline. Modern machines sometimes called “line” machines have multiple paylines that contain a number of rows, lines or sequences of paystops that form combinations for the gaming device to analyze. The multiple rows, lines or sequences present multiple opportunities for the player to obtain a winning combination of symbols. Usually, players have to wager more to obtain the benefit of the multiple lines. Many games provide a bonus jackpot for playing the maximum number of coins and paylines, which means the player increases the payout values by playing all the paylines.
The line machines display multiple rows of paystops generated by each reel of the gaming device, wherein each row is a payline. Machines having at least three reels and displaying at least three rows of symbols create diagonal lines, wherein each diagonal line is also a payline. Machines having five reels and displaying at least three rows have many possible paylines, wherein the only criterion is that each paystop of a line or sequence must be adjacent to at least one other paystop of the line. Consequently, certain known gaming machines have up to nine different paylines, wherein a player can make up to nine different bets each time the player spins the reels.
It should be appreciated that gaming machines have become rather complex in comparison to the original three reel, ten stop machine created before 1900. At some point, adding variety yields diminished returns as the inevitable accompanying complexity of placing multiple bets and trying to keep tract of multiple winning combinations for each bet becomes too complex for the player. A player may win after a given spin of the reels and find it difficult to determine how, where or why the player has won. Mechanical reels, which are limited in drum radius, have limited space with which to display the multitude of symbols. Simulated reel displays are also limited in size to make room for other input devices and displays requiring panel space. The limited display space and viewing area furthers the complexity created by the multitude of paylines and winning combinations.
Therefore, a need exists to create a second, preferably larger display that follows or mirrors the display of the operation of the actual reels, which randomly generate different combinations of symbols. A need also exists to have such a second display parse or separate the paylines on which the player has won from the remainder of the paylines and symbols of said display. Such a display is preferably simulated so that it can show other necessary indicia and different successful paylines at different times.